Public Transportation Experiences

4 Dec 2008 - 6:19pm

Last reply:
6 years ago

19 replies

2256 reads

Jennifer Hoppenrath

2006

Hi Folks,

I'm researching options for improving public transportation websites,
particularly bus transportation. I've found most city sites to be
lacking, but have found some nice mapping, real-time route information
on the Chicago CTA site and onebusaway.org for the Seattle Metro area. Google maps integrates well with mobile, particularly the iPhone and
has a bus routing feature for many cities.

Has anyone found anything they feel has been a great experience that they can share?

Thanks,
Jennifer Hoppenrath
Razorfish Seattle

Comments

4 Dec 2008 - 8:40pm

Caroline Jarrett

2007

Jennifer Hoppenrath
>> I'm researching options for improving public transportation websites,> particularly bus transportation. I've found most city sites to be> lacking, but have found some nice mapping, real-time route information> on the Chicago CTA site and onebusaway.org for the Seattle Metro area.> Google maps integrates well with mobile, particularly the iPhone and> has a bus routing feature for many cities.>> Has anyone found anything they feel has been a great experience that> they can share?>

Hi Jennifer

I'm a regular user of Transport for London's Journey Planner. You can enter
a wide range of different journey options - for example, I have walking
difficulties and I can tell it that I only want buses, walk slowly, and want
a journey with as little walking as possible between stops. The maps that
you get at the beginning and end of the journey are pretty good.

Try looking at the Portland Oregon Tri Met site as well. We did a
project recently that included some transportation questions as well.
The route planning part of this site was something we looked at
because it integrated their bus system, light rail and trolleys when
giving route information and timing.

On 04/12/2008, Jennifer Hoppenrath <jenhoppenrath at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm researching options for improving public transportation websites,> particularly bus transportation. I've found most city sites to be> lacking, but have found some nice mapping, real-time route information> on the Chicago CTA site and onebusaway.org for the Seattle Metro area.> Google maps integrates well with mobile, particularly the iPhone and> has a bus routing feature for many cities.>> Has anyone found anything they feel has been a great experience that they> can share?

The BART widget is pertty exceptional in terms of interaction design
(although not specifically a website feature).

Bret Victor (the app's creator) talks about aspecdts of it's
development in this article:

I use New Jersey Transit (http://www.njtransit.com) from time to time, and I
can't say that their Web experience is a good one, but it has a couple of
features that are reasonably well done. One, they have a "station
information" popup that tells you the street address, parking and bike rack
availability, and ticketing options (vending machines and/or humans) at the
train station you've selected. And two, their trip planner service, though
somewhat clunky, has some user-selected options that are nice, such as how
far you're willing to walk and whether you'd rather have fewer transfers or
less walking.

5 Dec 2008 - 12:26pm

carrie whitehead

2008

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority site offers riders a
lot of information and tools wrapped in a fairly clean design.

While living in San Francisco for a few years, I've used the Trip
Planner site to figure out the best route for my needs (you can
select the route by "fastest trip", "fewest transfers", or
"least walking" options).

I had a great experience using the Emery Go Round system in
Emeryville, CA due to their NextBus real-time tracking implementation,
however their web site can definitely use some work and isn't as
simple or direct as One Bus Away's site. You can retrieve real-time
shuttle status from the bus stop and the web site, and the system
worked great for me while I was there. Take a look:

Btw, let me know if you'd like any thoughts on the LA area MTA and
Metrolink. The public transportation experience is so fun to think
about and dabble in, and I love conjuring up ideas each time I ride.

MQ

5 Dec 2008 - 3:44pm

sherihy

2008

hopstop.com is really great, at least for New York it is. To me it's
what the MTA site *should* be.

Others can debate the potential security holes opened here, buthttp://swisstrains.ch/ shows the projected physical locations of
trains in Switzerland based on the published timetables. I believe
they're working on getting the actual GPS coordinates.

This site has been set up in England (and maybe the rest of the UK).
It brings together train, bus, car and walking. This is a area which
is exceptionally important as integration is important if public
transport is to take off. As far as I know it is not very widely
used, but it is a good example of how complex merging all this data
is, both technically and interaction design wise.

The Shanghai metro has expanded rapidly over the last 5 years (about 6
lines added) and will continue to do so upto the World Expo in 2010
(13 lines in total!). Sometimes it can be confusing to navigate
around the possible interchange stations. The following website is
really useful;

It has a complete map of the current metro network and you can drag
between your start and end station and it will calculate the price &
time taken! Also it gives the first and last train times for all
stations.

http://www.sbb.ch/, used it for long time, for me, the good experience
lies in two parts
1. it's very easy to lookup and plan your schedule (just point the
begin and end)
2. the subway/train always on time

Regards,
Jarod

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:19 AM, Jennifer Hoppenrath
<jenhoppenrath at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Folks,>> I'm researching options for improving public transportation websites,> particularly bus transportation. I've found most city sites to be> lacking, but have found some nice mapping, real-time route information> on the Chicago CTA site and onebusaway.org for the Seattle Metro area. Google maps integrates well with mobile, particularly the iPhone and> has a bus routing feature for many cities.>> Has anyone found anything they feel has been a great experience that they can share?>> Thanks,> Jennifer Hoppenrath> Razorfish Seattle>>>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help>

You can take a look at this Seoul, Korea subway website. They provide some
great feature that you're looking for.

- *Quick to get info* - Provide show/hide interested Line only. This
reduce the mental workload trying to find a target station in a highly
complex subway system.
- *Information guidance* - You're able to input the start/end destination
like in Google Map to find your way. It also can suggest a minimum route
transfer (click on the tab on the tree)

> Hi Folks,>> I'm researching options for improving public transportation websites,> particularly bus transportation. I've found most city sites to be> lacking, but have found some nice mapping, real-time route information> on the Chicago CTA site and onebusaway.org for the Seattle Metro area.> Google maps integrates well with mobile, particularly the iPhone and> has a bus routing feature for many cities.>> Has anyone found anything they feel has been a great experience that they> can share?>> Thanks,> Jennifer Hoppenrath> Razorfish Seattle>>>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help>

10 Dec 2008 - 3:27pm

Matthew Ventre

2008

I just recently have had to start using the TCAT bus system in Ithaca,
NY. I've had reasonable success with their site and interactive maps.
The trip planner is lacking somewhat (based on the limited results it
generates) but it's a step in the right direction.